One of the major hindrances to me is my constant clinging to "I."this has caused me some trouble and makes me rather blind in certain doctrines.How can I get rid of my constant clinging to self?

A person once asked me why I would want to stop rebirth. "It sounds pretty cool. Being able to come back. Who wouldn't want to be reborn."I replied. "Wanting to be reborn is like wanting to stay in a jail cell, when you have the chance to go free and experience the whole wide world. Does a convict, on being freed from his shabby, constricting, little cell, suddenly say "I really want to go back to jail and be put in a cell. It sounds pretty cool. Being able to come back. Who wouldn't want that?"

Think about what happens when you identify with something, for example when you say I am this or that, you are excluding the other possibilities and anchoring yourself to something partial rather than remaining open to the whole.

we cannot get rid of God because we still believe in grammar - Nietzsche

Reciting and contemplation of the Heart Sutra is often a very efficient practice for piercing ego, among other things. In East Asia, due to its relative short length, practitioners would memorize it and recite it continuously.

If you believe certain words, you believe their hidden arguments. When you believe something is right or wrong, true of false, you believe the assumptions in the words which express the arguments. Such assumptions are often full of holes, but remain most precious to the convinced.

The Buddha's basic remedy is the contemplation on the five aggregates and the 6-12-18 sensory fields. To see that whatever you call the I must be an aggregate, and all aggregates bear the three characteristics (impermanent, suffering, selfless) results in comprehending and even realising that there is no such thing as an I.

"There is no such thing as the real mind. Ridding yourself of delusion: that's the real mind."(Sheng-yen: Getting the Buddha Mind, p 73)

First I just ask "who am I", and name five things that define me, then follow these five things to their conclusion, and I see there is no "I" found in them, whatever I name will only be relationships to something else.

Sometimes when meditating I focus on physical pain I am feeling (don't know why pain is easier than anything else), and try to inquire into the pain and follow it to it's root...if/when i've been successful I can sort of "see" that the pain is not a thing but the working of the aggregates.

Johny Dangerous, Who am I?... is the ultimate question. It is stated in many different ways that the focus should be the origin of the I and to literally follow the thoughts back to their source and abide there right at that point of origin. Nisargadatta also points to this placeless place as just prior to the rise of the thought. Others even say I is the first name of God and holding the "I" can be a mantra which reminds one strongly of the diamond cutter sutra...a honing of all thoughts down to just the first principle. All that said, the point is the origin and directing the attention there as it wanders again and again. I really don't think there is one specific method for everyone. Don't all stances go in the end?

How exactly is the concept of I an illusion?I can understand that there is no self set in stone but there is still technically a being called Red Faced Buddha.My major problem is my fear of impermanence and anatman.

A person once asked me why I would want to stop rebirth. "It sounds pretty cool. Being able to come back. Who wouldn't want to be reborn."I replied. "Wanting to be reborn is like wanting to stay in a jail cell, when you have the chance to go free and experience the whole wide world. Does a convict, on being freed from his shabby, constricting, little cell, suddenly say "I really want to go back to jail and be put in a cell. It sounds pretty cool. Being able to come back. Who wouldn't want that?"

Red Faced Buddha wrote:How exactly is the concept of I an illusion?I can understand that there is no self set in stone but there is still technically a being called Red Faced Buddha.My major problem is my fear of impermanence and anatman.

Just to clarify, are you asking about personal identity here, or about the ontological status of awareness?

we cannot get rid of God because we still believe in grammar - Nietzsche

Red Faced Buddha wrote:How exactly is the concept of I an illusion?I can understand that there is no self set in stone but there is still technically a being called Red Faced Buddha.My major problem is my fear of impermanence and anatman.

Well, what is a being then? What is YOUR being? Follow the question to its most absurd lengths. The point isn't to prove some nihilist brainteaser "none of us really exists!"

Where you may arrive though is the apparent realization of nothing seeming to exist independently with clear-cut borders, nothing seeming to have a man behind the curtain calling the shots. And yet here you are. Paradoxes are good at stopping our minds, especially when we have a sense that it's not a paradox at all. Welcome to the absurdity of our normal views! Our natural state seems supremely bizarre if you look too close

Red Faced Buddha wrote:How exactly is the concept of I an illusion?I can understand that there is no self set in stone but there is still technically a being called Red Faced Buddha.My major problem is my fear of impermanence and anatman.

Well, what is a being then? What is YOUR being? Follow the question to its most absurd lengths. The point isn't to prove some nihilist brainteaser "none of us really exists!"

Where you may arrive though is the apparent realization of nothing seeming to exist independently with clear-cut borders, nothing seeming to have a man behind the curtain calling the shots. And yet here you are. Paradoxes are good at stopping our minds, especially when we have a sense that it's not a paradox at all. Welcome to the absurdity of our normal views! Our natural state seems supremely bizarre if you look too close

Red Faced Buddha wrote:How exactly is the concept of I an illusion?I can understand that there is no self set in stone but there is still technically a being called Red Faced Buddha.My major problem is my fear of impermanence and anatman.

These questions are common for a beginner.

Practice furthers. Practice can give you answers that no-one on a forum can adequately give.

When you know, then as the Buddha said, it is like tasting the fruit for yourself. Would you want anything less?

Doing some intro to Mahamudra meditation today...One of the practices was an exercise on expanding your consciousness, out of the body, infinitely all around, as if an expanding sphere of awareness.Have hit moments in meditation before, but today was pretty poignant.I started getting almost a panic attack - felt like i had to keep breathing, had to keep my heart breathing.Realized that maybe this was the clinging to self at a very basic level.I still have things i need to do in this life, like taking care of my kid(s), etc.Will keep practicing, but don't know if that lesson will be absorbed until some of my responsibilities are not so immediate.